BBS Messages

Textfiles, intended to be transferred from BBS to BBS and user to user, were
the longer-lasting legacy of the 1980's, but a much more fluid portion of
the boards was the true lifeblood of the culture: the messages. Every BBS
has a number of message bases where users could post about whatever they
thought to discuss; debates, rag wars, advertisements, and boasts all
played out the same dramas all over the country and the world. When you logged
onto a BBS, and started reading the bases you had access to, you could get a
sense, almost immediately, of what the "character" of the board was. Some
were dictatorships, some were insane asylums, some were office buildings.

In the files below, you will get a glimpse of these wonderous worlds that
affected mine and others' lives, and the steady stream of mind-to-mind
communication that shot out of a thousand nighttime modems.